Project kickoff brief on one page

You are an experienced project manager. Draft a one-page kickoff brief from my notes.

Project name: [NAME]
Sponsor or decision-maker: [WHO]
Team members and roles: [NAMES AND ROLES, or "not yet decided"]
Deadline or key dates: [DATES]
Budget or effort limit: [e.g. "€15k", "two people for six weeks", "unknown"]

My notes about the project:
"""
[PASTE IDEAS, EMAILS, REQUIREMENTS]
"""

Write the brief with these sections:
1. Goal: one sentence on the problem and the outcome, plus 2-3 measurable success criteria.
2. Scope: what is included.
3. Out of scope: what is explicitly not included (at least 3 items).
4. Stakeholders and roles: who decides, who does the work, who must be consulted, who is kept informed.
5. Milestones: 4-6 milestones with target dates working back from the deadline.
6. Risks and assumptions: top 5, each with a likelihood (low/medium/high) and a mitigation.
7. Open questions for the kickoff meeting, with who should answer each.

Rules:
- Keep it to one page (about 450 words).
- Do not invent names, budgets or dates. Write "TBD" where my notes are silent.
- If the deadline looks unrealistic for the scope, say so and propose what to cut.

Example (excerpt):
Goal: Replace the paper booking form at the clinic with an online form, so that front-desk phone calls drop. Success: 60% of bookings online within 3 months; no increase in no-shows.

Out of scope: payment online; integration with the hospital records system; mobile app.

Milestone 3: Pilot with one department — 15 January (TBD: which department).

Risk: older patients prefer phone booking (likelihood: high). Mitigation: keep the phone line and add a printed QR code at reception.

Open question: Who approves the final form wording? (Sponsor)

When to use it

Use this prompt when a project is about to start and the only documentation is an email thread, a slide or a conversation in the corridor. A short written brief makes sure everyone agrees on the goal, the limits and the dates before work begins. It suits internal projects, client engagements, events, small product launches and volunteer initiatives. Writing it before the kickoff meeting means the meeting can be spent on disagreements and decisions instead of basic explanations.

How to customize it

• [SPONSOR] matters because someone needs to make decisions. If there is no clear decision-maker, that is the first risk to raise.
• [TEAM MEMBERS AND ROLES] feed the stakeholder section. “Not yet decided” is fine; the brief will mark it TBD.
• [DEADLINE] and [BUDGET] are the main constraints. The model uses them to test whether the scope is realistic.
• [PASTE IDEAS] can be a mix of emails, meeting notes and requirements. More context produces a more specific brief.

Why it works

Many projects fail because of things nobody wrote down: an assumption about scope, an unclear decision-maker, a deadline that was never realistic. The brief’s sections are a checklist for those problems. The “Out of scope” section in particular prevents scope creep by making exclusions visible from the start.

Asking for measurable success criteria turns a vague goal into something you can check at the end. The stakeholder roles follow a common responsibility pattern (decide, do, consult, inform) that reduces confusion about who approves what. The TBD rule keeps the brief honest, and the open-questions list turns gaps into an agenda for the kickoff meeting.

Tips and variations

• Ask for a version of the brief written for the sponsor only, in five bullet points, so the decision-maker can approve it quickly without reading the full page.
• Share the draft before the kickoff and ask people to comment on the out-of-scope list; it is often where disagreements appear.
• Run our pre-mortem prompt on the brief to find more risks.
• For bigger decisions inside the project, use the weighted decision matrix.
• Update the brief when scope changes, and keep the old version so you can see what moved.